


Terms of Endearment

by girlintheYhat



Category: Lie to Me (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4008757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlintheYhat/pseuds/girlintheYhat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man can change his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terms of Endearment

In the relative quiet of lunchtime, her noise is all that he can hear.

Although calling it noise somehow seems unkind or wrong: her steps have that same fluid, purposeful rhythm as ever; her voice floats along like a well-known melody. Everything would be so very perfect if she wasn’t on the phone to _him_. The undercover agent and bloody great liar.

The gentle happiness loops into his ears and becomes a thousand dark coils that strangle his soul. Despising her pleasure has become some twisted necessity now that he knows her heart will be stamped on as quickly as it had been captured – a perfectly cruel equilibrium. He could only be happy for her if it was something tangible, something real, something built on the foundations of truth. Only with the quick, pleasured peal of her laughter does he realise that he’s been gripping the corner of his laptop so hard that his fingers ache. The sound is so pure and true that it makes him feel elastic and alive just moments before her hears her sweet goodbye.

“OK. I’ll see you later, babe.”

 _Babe_. It’s a big, thick pin in the balloon of his momentary joy. He thinks of that film with the talking pig, of pigs rolling in shit, contented in the muck and mire. He tries to rationalise that it’s not just jealousy. It just seems too saccharine and trivial. Would he like it if she called him ‘babe’? Fuck, no. Mostly because he’s always loved the way his name sounds on her lips – a short, breathy little caress.

A trace of a smile still lingers on her lips when she enters his office. It feels more like a scythe to him and he wonders when the mirage of her relationship will be cut in half and all the sweet nothings will be sliced and then fall like heads of corn. When that happens he knows he will put the pieces back together again and reap the reward of her hurtful harvest before sowing seeds of repair.

* * *

 

_One year later_

In the semi-darkness of dusk, he loses count of the four-letter words.

Deep, dark intonations of desire spill from her mouth in waves, words that are skin-soft and granite-hard at the same time, all the contradictions of love and want unravelling from her tongue. He feels he deserves the curses even if they purely serve to heat his blood and express the raw face of her pleasure. They’re not little flickers of anger or hateful barbs, just clipped, lustful sighs that only seem to amplify the intensity of their encounter.

In spite of being lost in between the delicious drag of her nails, the press of her thighs and the unrelenting grind of her hips, he finds just enough sanity to adjust the angle of his thrusts to elicit another stream of obscenities and a pulsing grip that nearly drives him out of his mind.

The next sentence comes out low, breathless and barely discernible. “Feels so good, _babe_.”

He grins wickedly into her crushing kiss and one lonely thought is so perfectly clear, even as he loses all of himself in her, even as he tastes sweetness, sweat and sex.

A man can change his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't really enjoy Burns/Gillian on the show, but I did find it sweet when she called him 'babe'. Which led me to this crazy little piece. :)


End file.
